Kajiado Central MP decries dismal KCSE performance

Kajiado,

Wednesday, January 17, 2024

KNA by Gillian Mirasi and Lizzy Agola

Kajiado Central Member of Parliament (MP) Memusi Kanchori has expressed his disappointment over the poor performance of public secondary schools in the constituency in last year's Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examination.

While addressing the media after a meeting with education stakeholders at the Kajiado Central National Government Constituency Development Fund (NG-CDF) offices to discuss the 2023 KCSE results, the MP said that he is not impressed with the poor performance which was recorded by most schools in the area. 

“In Kajiado Central sub county, 960 candidates sat for KCSE and only 17 percent attained direct entry to the university, 33 percent of the candidates attained C minus and D plus while 49 percent attained Grades D to E. This means that most of our learners have failed in their national examinations and this is not acceptable,” Memusi said.

He noted that Oloililai sub-county which is also within Kajiado Central Constituency had only 2.3 percent of the 569 candidates who sat for KCSE attaining direct entry to university, 34 percent will be able to join tertiary institutions and colleges while 64 percent scored grade D and below.

“These are unacceptable results and am calling upon all the education stakeholders to come in and lift their socks, invest time and sacrifice because these are lives we are wasting. These are children who are supposed to support us tomorrow and we are failing an entire generation. It is unacceptable. Everyone must play their role and we must cooperate as stakeholders,” said the MP.

The MP was curious about why the sub-county dropped in last year’s examination as compared to other examination years.

Kajiado Central Sub County had a mean score of 4.3 in 2023 KCSE with a negative deviation of -0.33 a drop from a mean score of 4.7 they had in 2022. In 2023 those transitioning to universities were 230 as compared to 2022 where 312 students qualified to join universities. 

“Am not happy with last year's examination results, we have a negative deviation and our performance has been fluctuating since 2020. Olkejuado Boys Secondary school who should be a leading school have also not done well this year,” he said.

On their part, the principals highlighted some of the challenges that could have led to the poor performances in the area namely, teenage pregnancies, indiscipline among the students, rampant absenteeism by the students, demoralized teachers, incomplete syllabus coverage, and school fees challenges among others.

“I would like to introduce food security in our schools to help our students be in school and avoid absenteeism. When a student is sure that he or she will get food in school it can motivate them to come to school, therefore, every school will set aside 10 acres of land for ploughing. We should also take advantage of the long rains,” said Memusi.

He added, “I will be visiting all the schools in this sub county and attending all the Annual General Meetings starting with Olkejuado boys in February. I will also liaise with other schools like Alliance High school to get exam materials for our students. For us also to achieve good grades we must complete the syllabus as early as the second term so that the third term is reserved for revision.”

Olkejuado Boys High School Principal James Passiany suggested that the young teachers in the schools should be encouraged to help the learners instead of just obeying the Teachers Service Commission rules of attending to students from 8am to 4pm but engaging the learners in extra work.

He urged teachers to revitalize drama clubs for the students where they can dramatize the effects of early pregnancies, school dropouts, drug addictions, and other indiscipline cases as doing this will create awareness about the vices and dissuade students from engaging in them. 

Courtesy; KNA